Saw a thread on these three compared from back in 2007, thought I’d refresh the topic and see where everyone is at. I’d be especially interested in those who have used 2 if not all 3 of these- and hear their thoughts in 2025.
Pro’s, Con’s, advantages, disadvantages, preferences, ROI?
What you selling??
Why you post in the Vendor Forum section??
I don’t use any of these but I can guarantee what most of those that do use them will say about them. Best thing since sliced bread.
You’ve made your choice with Spectora, have accepted their offer of free support and tutorials, but it appears you’re getting cold feet.
Any software you choose will take time to learn. When I got mine it took me 2 weeks at it every day for at least 8 hours a day to learn how to manipulate the software to get the report to look the way I wanted, that was 22 years ago and I’m still learning new things about it and still updating it to make my report writting proccess easier and more efficient. For me, it’s a never ending proccess.
There is only two of those three companies now
We have used HIP for the first couple years, then switched to Spectora. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. 
Actually. We like it better than HIP since you can’t modify HIP in the field and its very heavy browser based editing and it wasn’t friendly (for us anyways) for adding movies and extra pages or info.
Spectora is a good balance of app and browser based. You can add pages, videos on the fly and modify the template in the field. It’s just been easier for us. Like @kleonard says, the more you use it and learn about it the better you become with it. HIP has a great team but felt like limited support for us. Spectora has an amazing team and is always helping us and working on the app.
YMMV, but thats my 2 pennies on it.
That’s interesting that you found anything about Spectora in 2007 considering it did not exist until the very end of 2016. Home Inspector Pro was still in its infancy in 2007. Of the three that you mentioned, only HomeGauge had a strong market presence in 2007.
Spectora suddenly appeared on the market and Ben Gromicko started promoting it almost immediately in early 2017, before anyone had any appreciable experience with it.
Ben Gromicko put out a memo in early 2017 telling InterNACHI instructors that we were not to mention any inspection software in our classes (which I never did anyway) after I raised objections to Joe Haggerty aggressively promoting HomeGauge during classes. Then, only a few weeks after that there were Spectora banners in the HOH1 classroom area promoting Spectora and Ben was posting videos of the kids, with their man-buns, who created Spectora doing presentations at HOH1.
Which was flailing due to their poor attempt at buying NACHI Members with their crap NACHIGAUGE Version!! (Thinking it only lasted 2 or 3 years at best)!! Even Nick couldn’t help by giving out FREE copies as rewards and at the Christmas Party!
Spectora bought HG. There is not much chatter about the acquisition. Idk what this will end up looking like for customers that use their products. I guess if i were a newer user looking to invest my time and money I would be hesitant proceeding with Spectora/HG. Probably the safter bet would be Spectora. What will HG look like in a few months or short term? Whats the plan long term for HG? I noticed they are subtly already changing HG website and products offered. See here HomeGauge Software Pricing — Get a Free Trial It seems HG will be for desktop and companion for field report options?
HG used to have a desktop version that you purchased with a license and then you could purchase upgrades for newer versions. Then they had the companion, same concept. Then they came out with webwriter. HG had service subscriptions for the online sidebar stuff like cloud related services, which was always an option, they just added things to it over time. Then all of these were subscription based purchases or bundled all into one package. For us old timer users of the desktop that purchased licenses, we were grandfathered.(was called legacy until the spectora merger?) but I don’t see that now, which worries me. I hope I can keep my desktop software and license. I hope they will still support and update the software for my desktop software and legacy license. I hope I can purchase the online/cloud services and I hope it remains a reasonable price. Last 1 year renewal I purchased will be good through April 2026 was $499 I believe.
Maybe HG/Spector if you reach out would be willing to give you a confident enough answer as to what their product(s) and services are going to look like, especially the HG platform. But if I’m pitting the HG platform vs Spectora platform, I’d chose HG. I’m not big on clunky over saturated reports with too much riz and bling dripping. It hurts my eyeballs and brain looking at all the fillers, illustrations, directions, instructions, comments, photos, videos, disclaimers, sections, sub sections, sub sections of sub sections, side bars, containers, font size changes, and colors. Maybe Spectora platform you can strip a lot of that out, idk. If you can, please let me know. Call me, PM, email, share a sample report link here. I’m open to change. As far as HIP, I know several that are still happy with it. The last time I demoed HIP was several years ago. HIP still seems like a viable option. Maybe some HIPsters will chime in. GL with whatever you choose. BTW, not the end of world if you decide to swap teams on down the road either. I get a sense none of them are super loyal and I understand why too. It’s a business and their end game is to make profits.
Maybe it was 2017 and not 2007, then that would make more sense and aline better with your stated timeline. Interesting historical perspective about NACHI and pushing vs. not pushing a particular software- wasn’t aware of that. I think for the most part anything Ben has pushed has actually been pretty good. I’m currently working with Inspector Website Builder, and so far they’ve been excellent to work with.
Like I’ve said in other posts, I popped for Spectora based on all the “more recent” rave reviews from others on this forum. That’s why I was so taken back by my own personal experiences being so negative. Made me think maybe I moved too quickly- making me curious to hear from others on different software platforms. Like others have stated, I wish it wasn’t subscription based and I could just own it outright; but that’s kinda the way of the world.
Also, don’t limit yourself to just the three mentioned. There are more out there. There are also a few new ones coming online in the next year.
Ya gotta remember something… a large majority portion of said reviews are from Newbie inspectors roughly 2-3 years experience or less! Heck, even the Spectora Poster-Boy is only a 4-5 year inspector, and Spectora is the only software he has ever used professionally. How valuable is his recommendations?
Did you bother to research those reviewers prior to taking their advice?
No need to answer that. You made your decision, now you gotta live with it, or not.
That is the beauty of these kinds of forums, lots of knowledge, from helpful folks. I never claim to have all the answers to anything. Always been a firm believer, I can learn something from anyone- whether that’s what to do- or what not to do. . .
Curious… Do you interview your prospective clients?
If not, why not?
Think about it.
What I love about Spectora is publishing reports on-site. I’m able to do this with all of my reports using my phone and Spectora (even with a sewer scope video, I just upload it later and update the report). Couldn’t do that with HG. Also, the report quality seems higher in terms of visuals, etc. - just picked up a new agent this week who saw one of the reports and called me up.
Why not? …
The app seemed clunky but that was a while back. Better now?
I don’t use the on-site reporting feature. I was just curious as to why it could not perform this feature as advertised. Thanks for your reply.
Guys I’ve been really slacking . Stilll learning Spectora and not at all confident with my ability to use it. Got a one-on-one with a Spectora trainer which really helped, but I’m still struggling with it. They make everything look easy, but when I try to do the same, it gives me fits. Only thing I found “interesting” was the leads I got from clients finding me on the Spectora website. I had no idea I was even listed.
I’m back working with my old company and the new owner (I sold to) switched to Spectora… I absolutely HATED it at first…. a few months in, I only partially hate it
Like anything there is a learning curve and it’s difficult at first. I’m probably 30 inspections in and feel I’m getting decent at it. That being said, I don’t understand all the hype. I guess it looks cool to the end user but as for me generating a report? I really don’t see a day that I’ll be quicker than I was with my old MS Word template but I did have 25 years experience with that. There are just so many keystrokes and things to click on Spectora. And writing things up is far from smooth. Maybe 15% of my problems are a click, picture and done. The remaining 85% require some modification and that is clunky at best with Spectora. Even putting an arrow on a picture in Spectora is just stupid. Take the picture, click “save”, scroll down to the picture, click it, draw the arrow, then click “save”. Why can’t I just put an arrow in when I snap the picture? And that’s just one example of numerous little complaints I have with it. In “edit” mode (back on my PC) there are like three packed scroll bars down the right side. So many little windows within windows. And modifying comments after taking a pic…. super clunky. One click to change the title, get out of that and go into the comment, change that, another box for the location and yet another for a recommended contractor. I don’t know how they’d make it more difficult if they set out to. And what’s with all the “modes”?? Edit mode, preview mode, publish mode, summary. Toggling between each requires a download of some type and on a slow connection you’re toast.
In a nutshell, my thoughts on Spectora (and probably all the other mainstream systems) is that it’s tailored to inexperienced inspectors to quickly write bland reports that look cool. Any modification and/or comprehensive descriptions and it’s a bunch of hassle. I suppose that’s this industry these days. When it comes to software I always like to remind people, software isn’t developed to solve a problem or help us. It’s designed to sell software. Make it look cool and get people talking about it to drive sales is first….. actually helping us is far back in second place.
Edit - one last gripe…. and I’m sure this isn’t Spectora specific but rather all the modern programs. My old method with a digital camera and laptop was pretty great in the rain. Click pictures and put them into the report in the comfort of the house I’m inspecting, or my house, or a bar… or wherever I’m writing the report. Standing in the rain trying to keep my phone responding and getting rained on while clicking endless things SUCKS!. Yes, I can just take pictures to my phone’s gallery but that’s just more steps.
Like a lot of things, there’s a setting for that.